


to know you

by TruebornAlpha



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, Joe makes a less great patient, Light-Hearted, M/M, Nicky makes a great nurse, Post-Canon, Romance, Temporary Amnesia, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26065666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruebornAlpha/pseuds/TruebornAlpha
Summary: Amnesia fic.After a mission gone wrong, Joe wakes up, and takes his time coming back to Nicky.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 150
Kudos: 612





	to know you

Sometimes the job went wrong. It didn't matter how well they prepped, or how thorough their intel was. Sometimes they did everything right, and still lost. Nicky needed to remind himself, while the taste of dust lingered in the back of his throat, and his eyes watered apropos of nothing. 

They were in a safe house they hadn’t visited since the 1930s, on a road with no name, and its flickering fluorescents made Joe’s skin look sallow. This time Joe had borne the brunt of it, and Nile hadn't come out easy either, but she was up and awake, if not utterly exhausted.

Nicky didn't point out that he knew she was wearing Andy's shirt, or that Andy hovered around her like the world’s angriest hummingbird. Little things. Good things. He would tell Joe about that later, once everything was back to normal. 

"Are you sure he'll be alright?"

"Nicky, he's going to be fine." Andy sighed, resisting the urge to shake him. "He's rattled, but he's healing. Just give him time to reconnect all the loose wires."

Nicky glanced at Joe's unmoving form. A thousand years, and every single time that his love was hurt, he felt his heart seize in fear. He'd heal, they always healed, but some wounds took longer than others and when they'd found Joe after the explosion, there were more pieces than what had been left whole.

The worst of it had stitched itself together, a horror at first, but Joe was looking human again. His ribcage had closed up not ten minutes ago, and his breathing had evened with it. Nicky and Andy had rigged a makeshift hospital room to pump him full of painkillers to try and ease the agony of literally regrowing pieces of himself, but it still felt like it was taking too long. 

"I’ll be fine." He said, moving to sit beside Joe as Andy nodded, before stealing one of the pudding cups off the bedside table. They always seemed to help when things went bad. She was already headed toward Nile, who was fighting valiantly against sleep. Nicky only caught snippets of their conversation. Movement in his periphery made his heart stop, and he turned to watch his partner shift in place. 

Warm brown eyes blinked awake. 

He was the most beautiful thing Nicky had ever seen.

"Is this the hospital?" Joe mumbled, looking around blearily as he slipped over Italian. Nicky's heart felt like it was twisting out of his chest. He smoothed back Joe's wayward curls, waiting until Joe's eyes found his, before he could properly smile. Then he couldn’t seem to stop.

"No. It's just us." Nicky answered in kind. "Welcome back."

Joe wrinkled his nose, seemed to think it over, as he took Nicky's hand in his, examining it intently. His brow creased the way it did before he got the urge to paint. "Ah. I would have assumed... These hands are steady and they are kind. They would do good." Nicky would have called him silly, or he would've kissed him. Joe stopped him in his tracks. "Who are you?"

Three little worlds and his world shattered. For a moment, Nicky couldn't breathe. _H-how?_ No, no. Calm down. 

His mind went to the worst places, but they’d seen this before, though not since before Booker's time. Head wounds were notoriously difficult to heal and the effects could linger. He thought of Brussels in the spring and Andromache’s unfocused glare, and of the silver steppes and Quynh’s winsome smile, blood still splattered across her forehead. Sometimes even when things had healed, the mind wanted to shut out the memory of trauma. 

Best not to upset him. It would only be a few minutes, and well…

"I'm Nicky, remember?" He asked. "You were hurt, but you're safe now and you're going to be all better soon. I'm going to take good care of you."

Joe's eyebrows drew together in comical concentration, before his grin broke free, bright and triumphant as if he'd just solved a difficult puzzle. "You're my nurse! I'm so lucky, you're such a pretty nurse."

He was sweet. Even like this. Nicky couldn't help but smile, just a little, as he wrapped his hands around Joe's.

"Pretty." Nicolo repeated, because he was a glutton for punishment. Joe was fluttering his long lashes at him, but he couldn't seem to get blinking quite right. And to be quite fair, they had Joe on impressively punchy painkillers to stave off the screaming agony of the past few hours.

"Thank you for rescuing me." He slurred, and squeezed their tangle their hands together. "I don't know how I would've survived without you. I do not think I could." 

“You would have found a way, surely.” 

A soft sound escaped Joe as he reached up, to stroke the curve of Nicky's cheek. Nicky obliged, because he would sooner stop breathing than deny him. Joe’s fingers curled slowly across its shape, stroked beneath his chin and pulled them closer until their foreheads touched. "I would not.” He said vehemently, eyes too bright. “I would not want to open my eyes if I could not see you.” 

Nicky was charmed despite his own worries. It had been so long since he'd seen Joe falling in love right before his eyes. He wanted to kiss him, but he was still confused and healing, and Nicky just gently pushed him back down into his pillows. 

"Of course." He murmured fondly. "I will always be there to rescue you.”

Joe beamed, not quite following the plot but just happy to be here. "I'm lucky!" He crowed. "Are you single?" Nicky had to hold his breath to keep from laughing as Joe tried to blink and failed.

Yusuf was unfairly handsome when he decided he wanted something. 

"I am not." Nicky said, and immediately felt like a heel. Joe's expression crumbled, candid in his grief, and Nicky rushed forward immediately, to find his soft curls, and offer some kind of solace.

"Do they know how fortunate they are?" Joe asked softly, eyes too wide and color high in his cheek. "To have someone like you in their lives. Do they make you happy?"

When Joe reached for him, Nicky let himself be pulled in. Joe cupped his cheek, and Nicky turned into his touch, pressing a kiss to the center of his palm.

"He does. He's my world." Nicky whispered. "You are going to be so embarrassed when this is all over." 

"I won't be. I would not regret any word spent in praise of you. I would not regret even a heartbeat spent in love for you." He said earnestly, always so earnest, the love of Nicolo’s long, long life. He looked at Nicky like Nicky had told him puppies ceased to exit. Nicky felt bad about teasing. 

"Here Joe, have a pudding cup."

"Okay."

That could have been a good enough distraction. Nicky liked to think he had a healthy sense of self-worth, and he ranked reasonably well against pudding cups, enough so that it would be a fair trade off. It wasn't. Joe's lower lip was pushed out and pouting, his poet, his warrior, humbled by Nicky's hubris. As if Nicky could have or want anyone else.

This time, Nicky laughed helplessly, eyes drawn to Joe's mouth. It was pretty and pink, and had brought him to ruin again and again. "You, you lovely thing. You make me very happy."

"Me?" Joe _gasped,_ struggling to understand. 

"Mmhmm." Nicky was having too much fun now, even as he peeled open the lid to the pudding cup. Not sure why, but these little things always seemed to make you feel better after healing when your insides were still a little ragged. Besides, Joe always did love the ones with the vanilla layer in between the chocolate.

"Even when your head's rattled, all that comes out is poetry. It's incorrigible, you know I love you."

 _"I do?"_ His eyes got even wider at the concept, a slow grin spreading over his face.

"Of course you do. Remember?"

Joe hmmed, and Nicky would tear down empires to see him smile like that again. Nicky let him breathe, with a hand on his knee, happy for that point of contact. Joe looked like he was thinking.

"Does that mean- have we ever...?"

"What?"

"Kissed."

There was no good way to answer that, and Nicky laughed again, embarrassed - or rather, pleased, despite himself. "All that and more, my heart. More times than numbers have meaning."

"I think we should." Joe said, sitting up straighter, the pudding cup half-empty and forgotten. "So I remember, Nicolo. Please?" And how could he say no to that? He inched closer, and Joe cradled his chin in his hand, drawing him in to close the distance. The other half of Nicky’s heart, brave and vulnerable, and kinder than measure, he kissed so sweetly. 

Wait.

_"You-!"_

Yusuf laughed, and dragged him in for another kiss. Nicky refused, sputtered, because that was a dirty trick, but he didn't refuse for as long as he should have. He pressed their lips together, heat behind the kiss, until Nicky could lick chocolate off his tongue.

"How long?" He demanded, panting for breath.

"Pudding cup. Give or take." Joe answered, grinning.

Nicolo was glaring. Glaring! He had a thousand years to learn how to look intimidating. Yusuf had about just as long to learn how to ignore him.

"So rude, you made me worry!" Nicky huffed, punching his fist against Joe's shoulder who winced and he was immediately sorry. 

"I'm sorry, my love." He dragged his fingers down the side of Nicky's face. "But not that sorry."

"You were sweeter when you didn't remember what a bastard man you were."

"That is something I can assure you that I never forgot." Joe gave Nicky a wink. "But waking up to my loveliest of nurses was irresistible. How could I be anything but smitten?"

"Just for this, I am going to eat the rest of your pudding cup." Nicky defiantly stuck the spoon in his mouth as Joe howled, dragging his partner down into the bed to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

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